pennyspoetryfandomcom-20200214-history
Nelly Sachs
Nelly Sachs (10 December 1891 - 12 May 1970) was a Nobel Prize-winning Jewish German poet and playwright Life Overview whose experiences resulting from the rise of the Nazis in World War II Europe transformed her into a poignant spokeswoman for the grief and yearnings of her fellow Jews. Her best-known play is Eli: Ein Mysterienspiel vom Leiden Israels (1950); other works include the poems "Zeichen im Sand" (1962), "Verzauberung" (1970), and the collections of poetry In den Wohnungen des Todes (1947), Flucht und Verwandlung (1959), Fahrt ins Staublose (1961), and Suche nach Lebenden (1971). Youth Sachs was born Leonie Sachs in Schöneberg, Germany in 1891, to the wealthy natural rubber and gutta-percha manufacturer Georg William Sachs (1858-1930) and his wife Margarete (Karger) (1871-1950)."Nelly Sachs – Autobiography". Nobelprize.org. She was educated at home because of frail health. She showed early signs of talent as a dancer, but her protective parents did not encourage her to pursue a profession. She grew up as a very sheltered, introverted young woman and never married. She pursued an extensive correspondence with, and was friends with, Selma Lagerlöf and Hilde Domin. In Sweden As the Nazis took power, she became increasingly terrified, at one point losing the ability to speak, as she would remember in verse: "When the great terror came/I fell dumb." Sachs fled with her aged mother to Sweden in 1940. It was her friendship with Lagerlöf that saved their lives: shortly before her own death Lagerlöf intervened with the Swedish royal family to secure their release from Germany. Sachs and her mother escaped on the last flight from Nazi Germany to Sweden, a week before Sachs was scheduled to report to a concentration camp. They settled in Sweden and Sachs became a Swedish citizen in 1952. Living in a tiny 2-room apartment in Stockholm, Sachs cared alone for her mother for many years, and supported their existence by translations between Swedish and German. After her mother's death, Sachs suffered several nervous breakdowns characterized by hallucinations, paranoia, and delusions of persecution by Nazis, and she spent a number of years in a mental institution. She continued to write even while hospitalized. She eventually recovered sufficiently to live on her own, though her mental health would always be fragile. Her worst breakdown was ostensibly precipitated by hearing German speech during a trip to Switzerland to accept a literary prize. However, she maintained a forgiving attitude toward a younger generation of Germans, and corresponded with many German-speaking writers of the postwar period, including Hans Magnus Enzensberger and Ingeborg Bachmann. Poetry and Paul Celan In the context of the Shoah, her deep friendship with "brother" poet Paul Celan is often noted today. Their bond was described in one of Celan's most famous poems, "Zürich, Zum Storchen" ("Zürich, The Stork Inn").[http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/c/celan-selected.html Excerpt Selected Poems and Prose of Paul Celan], translated by John Felstiner. Norton. In The New York Times Sachs and Celan shared Holocaust and the fate of the Jews throughout history, their interest in Jewish and Christian mysticism, and their literary models; their imagery was often remarkably similar though developed independently. Their friendship was supportive during professional conflicts. Celan also suffered from artistic infighting (Claire Goll's accusations of plagiarism) during a period of frustration with the reception of his work. When Sachs met Celan she was embroiled in a long dispute with Finnish-Jewish composer Moses Pergament over his musical adaptation of her stage play Eli: Ein mysterienspiel vom Leiden Israels. In Celan, she found someone who understood her own anxiety and hardships as an artist. Death Following her death from intestinal cancer in 1970, Nelly Sachs was interred in the Norra begravningsplatsen in Stockholm. Her possessions were donated to the National Library of Sweden.Nelly Sachs' collection at the National Library of Sweden Writing Sachs' poetry is intensely lyrical and reflects some influence by German Romanticism, especially in her early work. The poetry she wrote as a young woman in Berlin is more inspired by Christianity than Judaism and makes use of traditional Romantic imagery and themes. Much of it concerns an unhappy love affair Sachs suffered in her teens, with a non-Jewish man who would eventually be killed in a concentration camp. After Sachs learned of her only love interest's death, she bound up his fate with that of her people and wrote many love lyrics ending not only in the beloved's death, but in the catastrophe of the Holocaust. Sachs herself mourns no longer as a jilted lover but as a personification of the Jewish people in their vexed relationship to history and God. Sachs' fusion of grief with subtly romantic elements is in keeping with the imagery of the kabbalah, where the Shekhinah represents God's presence on earth and mourns for the separation of God from His people in their suffering. Thus Sachs' Romanticism allowed her to develop self-consciously from a German to a Jewish writer, with a corresponding change in her language: still flowery and conventional in some of her earliest poetry on the Holocaust, it becomes ever more compressed and surreal, returning to a series of the same images and tropes (dust, stars, breath, stones and jewels, blood, dancers, fish suffering out of water, madness, and the ever-frustrated love) in ways that are sometimes comprehensible only to her readers, but always moving and disturbing. Though Sachs does not resemble many authors, she appears to have been influenced by Gertrud Kolmar and Else Lasker-Schüler in addition to Paul Celan. Recognition In 1961 she became the inaugural winner of the Nelly Sachs Prize, a literary prize awarded biennially by the German city of Dortmund, and named in her honour. When, with Shmuel Yosef Agnon, she was awarded the 1966 Nobel Prize in Literature, she observed that Agnon represented Israel whereas "I represent the tragedy of the Jewish people." A memorial plaque commemorates her birthplace, Maaßenstraße 12, in Schöneberg, Berlin; where there is also a park, in Dennewitzstraße, named after her. A park on the island of Kungsholmen in Stockholm also bears her name. Publications In German Poetry *''Legenden und Erzaehlungen''. Meier, 1921. *''In den Wohnungen des Todes''. Aufbau, 1946. *''Sternverdunkelung''. Bermann-Fischer, 1949. *''Eli : Ein mysterienspiel vom leiden Israels''. 1951. *''Und niemand weiss weiter''. Ellerman, 1957. *''Flucht und Verwandlung''. Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1959 *''Fahrt ins Staublose: Die gedichte der Nelly Sachs''. Suhrkamp, 1961. *''Die Gedichte der Nelly Sachs''. (2 volumes), Suhrkamp, 1961-1971. *''Zeichen im Sand : Die szenischen dichtungen der Nelly Sachs''. Suhrkamp, 1962. *''Das Leiden Israels''. Suhrkamp, 1962. *''Ausgewaehlte Gedichte''. Suhrkamp, 1963. *''Glühende Rätsel''. Insel, 1964. *''Späte Gedichte''. Suhrkamp, 1965. *''Die Suchende''. Suhrkamp, 1966. *''Wie leicht wird Erde sein: Ausgewaehlte Gedichte''. Bertelsmann, 1966. *''Simson faellt durch Jahrtausende und andere szenische Dichtungen''. Deutscher Taschenbuch, 1967. Collected editions *''Das Buch der Nelly Sachs'' (edited by Bengt Holmqvist). Suhrkamp, 1968. *''Verzauberung: Späte szenische dichtungen''. Suhrkamp, 1970. *''Teile dich Nacht: Die letzten Gedichte'' (edited by) Margaretha Holmqvist & Bengt Holmqvist). Suhrkamp, 1971. *''Suche nach Lebenden: Die Gedichte der Nelly Sachs'' (edited by Margaretha Holmqvist & Bengt Holmqvist). Suhrkamp, 1971. Letters *''Briefe der Nelly Sachs'' (edited by Ruth Dinesen & Helmut Müssener). Suhrkamp, 1984. *''Briefwechsel / Paul Celan, Nelly Sachs'' (edited by Barbara Wiedemann). Suhrkamp, 1993. English translations Poetry *''O the Chimneys: Selected poems; including the verse lay 'Eli' (translated by Michael Hamburger et al). New York: Farrar, Staus, 1967. *''The Seeker, and other poems (translated by Ruth & Matthew Mead, & Michael Hamburger). New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1970. ISBN 978-0-374-25780-4 *''Collected Poems I, 1944–1949'' (2007), Green Integer, 2007.. ISBN 978-1-933382-57-9 Letters *''Paul Celan, Nelly Sachs: Correspondence'' (translated by Christopher Clark; edited by Barbara Wiedemann). New York: Sheep Meadow Press, 1995. Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy NobelPrize.org.Nelly Sachs - Bibliography, NobelPrize.org. Web, Dec. 28, 2017. See also *Poets of other languages References External links ;Poems *Poems of Nelly Sachs in English ;Audio / video *Nelly Sachs at YouTube ;About *Nelly Sachs at NobelPrize.org *This article uses Creative-Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0) licensed text from the New Workd Encyclopedia Original article is at Nelly Sachs Category:1891 births Category:1970 deaths Category:Writers from Berlin Category:German Jews Category:German women poets Category:Swedish Jews Category:Swedish women poets Category:Jewish poets Category:Nobel laureates in Literature Category:Swedish people of German-Jewish descent Category:People from the Province of Brandenburg Category:Swedish Nobel laureates Category:German Nobel laureates Category:Women Nobel laureates Category:Cancer deaths in Sweden Category:German emigrants to Sweden Category:20th-century poets Category:20th-century women writers Category:German poets Category:German women writers Category:Poets Category:Women poets